number 34 • Winter 2018

The Public Interest

Defending the Constitution

Winter 2003

ROBERT A. Dahl, one of America’s most prominent political scientists, asks us in his latest book to judge the Constitution in the light of a single criterion: By present-day standards, how democratic is it? Dahl examines just about every provision of the Constitution_those regarding the legislatures, the presidency, the courts, election methods, the federal structure, the party system, and moreland finds them all unacceptably undemocratic.